David Irving

[Photo by David Gamble for
The Independent on Sunday]

The
PQ.l7 Libel Action, 1970

Captain
J E Broome, vs. Cassell & Co Ltd and David
Irving

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Captain
J E Broome, DSO, RN, the
escort commander in this 1942 North Russian convoy
disaster, sued David Irving in libel after the
publication by Cassell and Co. Ltd. of this book in
October 1968. The case came to trial in February
1970; after seventeen days the Jury awarded Broome
what was then one of the largest sums of damages,
including punitive damages, in history.

In the High Court,
London

David
Irving's February 1970 replies to Letters received from
Members of the Public about the Case

AFTER
THE British
national newspapers published on their front pages
the news of the immense sum awarded to
Captain Jack
Broome, DSO,
RN., for the libels the Jury had detected in David
Irving's book
THE
DESTRUCTION OF CONVOY PQ.17
(Cassell &
Co London, 1968), he received letters from all over
the world.

A few were abusive. One
Royal Naval officer wrote an anonymous letter
saying: "Your name will stink for ever amongst all
seafaring men." Another sent a festive GPO
greetings telegram reading: "We are splicing the
mainbrace in Portsmouth tonight" -- dishing out an
extra tot of rum.

The overwhelming
majority of the letters was favourable, and
included letters from fellow historians including a
handwritten one from
Hugh Trevor
Roper, Admiral Sir Norman
Denning
(director of Naval Intelligence, and brother of the
senior judge
Lord
Denning), and
many of the other admirals who had read the book.
Although the rules made it impossible for Mr Irving
to criticise the award, let alone to continue to
maintain that the passages complained of were
justified, and that is not suggested here, here are
some of the replies privately written by him to
these correspondents in the fourth week of February
1970:

To Lieutenant-Commander Michael G Forsyth Grant, RNR,
Retd.:

IT WAS VERY
good of you to write to me at such length about
the results of the Broome Case. I am only sorry that the
Jury were not required, as is normally statutory, to read
the whole book through before hearing any arguments from
either side; I still cannot see how anybody felt the
passages or the book as a whole was defamatory of Broome,
let alone charged him with responsibility for the
destruction of the convoy. After page 139 of a 306 pp book
his name is not even mentioned! I believe there is going to
be an appeal, and we must hope that Appeal Judges are less
emotional animals than Jurymen.

I was very sorry to hear of Mr Gradwell's death.*
I did not realise he had passed on until half way through
the case, from a remark by the Judge. I must have been in
correspondence with Gradwell right up to the very end, for
we were discussing the preparation of the case in our last
letters.

I HAVE
RECEIVED quite a number of letters, and so far 95
per cent have been on my side; I have received some abusive,
and some most objectionable letters, and these sad to say
come almost all from naval officers, so far as they identify
themselves.

There is almost certain to be an appeal, though whether
it will be on the liability issue or only on the issue of
damages we cannot say until Thursday. I will mention the
points you have made when I next see my Counsel. I can only
say how unexpected the verdict was -- until the Judge
started his summing up, of course.*

[* 1998 note:
The High Court judge was Mr Justice Lawton;
before the war he had been a supporter of fascist leader
Sir Oswald Mosley, as more than one newspaper
gleefully pointed out; he had struggled ever since to
rehabilitate himself with the Establishment. His summing
up attracted scathing criticism by national newspapers,
the Guardian and Observer being two
outstanding examples, and Private Eye ran a
hilarious lampoonon it, "Mr Justice Lawandorder Sums
Up."]

Private letter to The Editor, The
Observer:

I VERY MUCH
appreciate your Editorial, "A sense of priorities", in
today's Observer. Your parallel case is very
apposite; to my mind, as the Judge and Jury announced the
damages and its "punitive" element, there came the case of
John Bloom, fined (I believe) £38,000 for swindling
tens of thousands of ordinary people, and admitting
this.

It is a very disturbing state of affairs. Cassell and I
would hardly have fought the case had we not been advised on
the most experienced level that we had no case to answer
(that was why we called no oral evidence); Cassell &
Co.'s underwriters inspected the book and checked it against
Broome's own official report, and also stated that we need
not take Broome's threat of libel action seriously; my
Counsel stated that if -- by some chance -- the Jury could
be emotionally swayed against us, as Broome is a Royal Navy
officer, the most he would be awarded for the very mild
statements made about him would be say £500 (Counsel
therefore advised a "payment in" in of £550, which we
decided against in view of our defence that there were no
defamatory or untrue statements in the book.)

There are powerful indications that the case was brought
only at the instance of Mr Godfrey Winn (who threatened
Cassell & Co in February 1968, just before Broome 's
first Writ, that he was going to break them and me). Until
this last Monday morning, we were convinced that the Jury
would find for the Defendants, but after the Judge's curious
summing up (describing me as a "fly and slippery character",
and an "unattractive character", etc.) we had no doubt as to
the outcome.

Postscript: In addition, a point which
was not made enough of or widely reported: both the draft
manuscript and the proof copy of the book were shown to
Captain Broome, after he agreed to read them, and he was
twice requested in writing to let us know what were the
passages he objected to, if any. Twice he declined to
make any comments on the manuscript. The correspondence
read out in Court between myself and the Admiralty and
others shows that I bent over backwards to obtain
material favourable to Broome's case. Yet still he claims
he was "distressed and disgusted" by the publication of
the book, and claimed exemplary damages for injury to his
reputation. It just does not add up.

To Prof. Hugh R. Trevor Roper (later Lord
Dacre):

IT WAS VERY
good of you to have written about the outcome of the "Broome
Case". It has been a trying month altogether, and the
Judge's summing up at one time made me wish I had worn
waterproof hat, raincoat and galoshes, he poured so much
abuse upon me; and I had to sit and take it! It is very
likely we shall appeal on the grounds of misdirection of the
Jury. All legal advice was that Broome had no case
whatsoever, as I had just followed his own report to the
Admiralty. However, he paraded four Admirals in the box, to
declare that there is a difference between orders,
instructions, recommendations, suggestions, and "jollying
along" as one of them said, and he got away with it (and
with £40,000). I predict that he will not live to see a
penny of it, since this case will now go both higher and
further.*

Would you like to dine here next time you are in
London?

[ * 1998 note:
It did. It reached the House of Lords, where seven,
instead of five, Law Lords heard the appeal, a
constitional issue having become involved; Lord
Hailsham cast the casting vote against David Irving,
telling him gleefully years later, in 1988, after
they
met in private at a TV studio,
"I sank you, Irving, didn't I!" Cassell's appealed again,
and the House allowed them half of their costs of appeal,
which burden fell heavily on the unfortunate Captain
Broome.]

To J. J. Bowes:

YOU CLEARLY
TOOK the trouble to study the case very closely,
and to follow what it was about. I only wish the Jury had
devoted the same attention to what was in the book, and less
to what the Captain's Q.C. told them he thought the book
meant -- a lot of injustice would have been avoided.

To fellow historian (Mussolini biographer) Richard
Collier:

THANK YOU
FOR the condolences. I think the case has
implications for all authors, as I literally followed the
wording in Broome 's own report to the Admiralty; however he
paraded four admirals in the witness box to say what a good
fellow he was, his Counsel claimed that the book blamed him
for the whole disaster, the Judge described me as "an
unattractive sort of fellow" and "a fly and slippery
character", and we know the result. There will be an
appeal.

I agree: when you have done with Mussolini, come and have
dinner with Pat here one evening when you are in town -- we
are about 50 yards from Grosvenor Square. I am just
finishing off Milch, and then turning to Hitler.

To Sydney Bedgrave McRae:

IT WAS
ABSOLUTELY splendid of you to have written
to me about the result of the Broome Case; I don't mind
telling you that I have had a number of letters in very
different vein, and yours was a welcome break from "poison
pen"! By all means come and see me one day when you are in
London, I am away from next Thursday for about ten days;
perhaps you would like to ring me after then, when you are
in Town, and come and have tea here.

To Peter C. Smith:

IT WAS
VERY good of you to write to me about the
result of the Broome Case. I think there is going to be an
appeal, and I shall ask you to cross your fingers in that
event, as the verdict was certainly not substantiated by
anything more material than the Judge's summing up.

To Anthony Fairburn:

IT WAS VERY
good of you to write to me about the Broome
Case verdict; it has always been my view that any Juryman
reading the book first could never have entertained the view
that it defamed Broome in any way. Unfortunately the Judge,
instead of giving them the statutory day to read the book as
soon as the case began, asked them to read it in their spare
time or "when they could", and I doubt that any of them read
it all. The result was that the other Q.C. was able to
suggest all sorts of things to the Jury, which had no basis
in the book at all.

To William Roberts:

I CANNOT
BELIEVE that the Jury bothered to read the
whole book, as if they had they could not possibly have
reached the verdict that it blamed Broome for the PQ.17
disaster. I am horrified at the vindictiveness of the naval
officers and historians they assembled to try to flatten my
book (after 8 years' work on it!) Unfortunately they have
succeeded.